Thump
by LtTanyaBoone
Summary: "It's a gut feeling, the first she has had in a while. The first that is so intense that everything in her screams for her to take action. But she already knows it's too late." Two-shot
1. Chapter 1

_Title:_ Thump._  
Disclaimers:_ NCIS, the rights to the show and its characters do not belong to me. No money was made by this._  
A/N:_ English is not my native language. So please forgive me my grammar and spelling mistakes._  
Spoilers:_ kinda AU, I guess_  
Pairing:_ apparently Ari/other but not stated_  
Summary:_ It's a gut feeling, the first she has had in a while. The first that is so intense that everything in her screams for her to take action. But she already knows it's too late._  
A/N2_: popped into my head, refused to leave me alone until it was written down, two-shot, or rather, two-bang

_**WARNING! **Character death._

* * *

Thump.

Thump.

_Thump._

She is weightless. The soft cotton fabric of her pants is caught in a rare breeze. Her hair, untamed curls, flutters wildly, a few strands able to escape her tight ponytail. She needs to get it cut. Or spend more time on fixing it. But with her job, time is always running out.

Thump.

Thump.

Sun is shining, beating down on her, heating her. A drop of sweat travels down her neck, into her blouse, trickles down her spine. Scorched sand is crunching under her light sandals. Nothing different from any other day in the Israeli summer. The heat of the desert has been her home for all her life. She missed it. Maybe.

Thump.

Thump.

Laughter floats over to her. She turns in the heat, squinting against the brightness. A car door slamms. She feels her hand leaving the handle of the metal door and takes a step forward, her eyes searching the playground. Taking in faces, listening to voices, waiting for a spark of recognition.

Thump.

Thump.

_Doda!_

Thump.

Thump.

There she is, so at ease among other children. Relief floods her as she waves and giggles with the small girl waving back at her before running off after her friend to explore the playground more. When the girl turns her head, her hand sinks down and she takes a deep breath, the first one in weeks.

Thump.

Thump.

He touches her elbow, and she looks at him, at the proud grin on his face. And feels her face morph into a soft smile of her own. Shakes her head, and hugs him tightly, because she can. Because they are here, right now, and they are alive, unlike so many other, unlike his financée, the mother of the little girl. But they are still here, they persevered. And she will do anything for it to remain this way.

Thump.

Thump.

He lifts her up and whirls her around, just like he has done in the past. She throws her head back and laughs. And she feels something shifting, something fundamental. A shiver creeps up her spine and her breath catches in her throat.

Thump.

Thump.

The metal of her gun at her hip is suddenly hot and burns her skin. He sets her back down, looks into her face, confusion in his dark eyes. She opens her mouth, but cannot make a sound.

Thump.

Thump.

It's a gut feeling, the first she has had in a while. The first that is so intense that everything in her screams for her to take action. But deep down, she already knows it will be too late.

Thump.

Thump.

She lets go of him and whirls around, her eyes searching the playground in panic, horror starting to bubble up inside of her. She knows this feeling, knows it too well. Something is off here, something dangerous is looming. Something is threatening the ones she loves, and it makes her heart race and her hands clammy.

Thump.

Thump.

Her brother yells for his daughter as she screams the girl's name as loud as she can. He has caught unto her mood, maybe his own instincts have kicked in. It does not matter, what matters right now is getting the girl to them, as fast as possible.

Thump.

The head of the girl pops up from where she was building a sand castle. She looks confused, her friend tries to catch her attention, too, and for a moment, she does not know who to listen to.

Thump.

Aviva slowly stands as her father yells at her to get to them this instant. There is something in Ari's voice, a layer of panic, that his daughter has never heard before, that Ziva herself has only listened to twice. It makes the threat even more real, increased the urgency.

Thump.

Her eyes meet those of the woman in charge of the group of children. Locks on her dark orbs. She ses her face fall. And the words I'm sorry for an instant, before her eyes harden, and her own eyes widen, because this cannot be happening, not to them, not right now. No, this cannot be true.

Thump.

The yell of "For Allah!" echoes off the surrounding buildings and cars. And her blood freezes, her heart stops beating for an instant as the trigger comes into view.

Thump.

Her gun is out and she aims and just as she pulls the trigger, the red button is pushed and everything is a different, painful kind of heat and noise of an explosion. She sees the confusion on her niece's face before everything becomes blinding whiteness and she is thrown back by the force of the blast.

_Thump._

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A/N3: I need to stop falling in love with story ideas that play as a video clip in my head over and over again because writing them down never lives up to the original take in my head.

Second chapter should be out by the end of this week.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thank you for the alerts anf favs for this story. I feel I am letting you down with this chapter because of the lack of explanation._

* * *

Thump.

Thump.

_Thump._

There is no reason anyone would expect. Like wanting to save all the innocent people, wanting to protect her team. There are many reasons, really, all of them having to do with her childhood, what she saw year by year in her own country. The most important one is not because of her or the team or anyone here. It's because of a little girl she lost so many years ago.

Thump.

Thump.

The second they know there is a bomb, she runs forward. In an instinct, she dodges Tony's attempt to grab her, ignores Gibbs's yell to obey his order. Heeds Aviva's call. Because she has to. The bomb squad would take too long to get here, she can try and disarm the thing before they even reach the high way.

Thump.

Thump.

Sweat is trickling down her face and into her eyes as she pulls her hair into a ponytail to keep her curls from distracting her. She should have straightened them and put them into a ponytail when she got ready for work today. Her life has always been a big "should've" since her niece's death.

Thump.

Thump.

She couldn't save her, couldn't save all these children back then. So she has to try and save all the souls that do not have enough time to leave the shoppig center on the Naval Air station. She owes her that much. Owes it to her brother, bastard that he turned into.

Thump.

Thump.

Thirty seconds to go. She wipes across her brow and blinks, shaking her head lightly before concentrating again, following the wires with her eyes.

Thump.

Thump.

Red. Or blue. Or maybe black. Soft giggling is carrying to her across the ocean and years. She squeezes her eyes shut, tries to block it out. It will not go away.

Thump.

Thump.

Definitely not red. Scorching sun is beating down on her neck. She wipes away a drop of sweat and takes a deep breath. One down, two to go.

Thump.

Thump.

Always carry a knife. For the past years, her life has been dominated by rules from a man she has come to accept as some sort of surrogate father. But this is one rule he did not have to instill on her, because her real father, her biological one had succeeded in doing it years before she even met Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs or heard his name for the first time.

Thump.

Fifteen seconds. She should start saying the Viddui now. But she won't complete it, anyway, so there is no point in it, really.

Thump.

Blue. Like the sea at Haifa. She feels the warm water wash over her skin, feels her squirming niece in her arms when she took her into the ocean for the first time.

Thump.

Or black. Like Aviva's eyes, soulful black depths with so many mysteries she never got to explore. That she wanted to know by heart before she took her last breath.

Thump.

Black.

Thump.

Her blade catches the wire. Laughter fills the air around her. She looks up.

Thump.

Her eyes meet that of her niece.

_Thump._

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_Review? Pretty please?_

_Btw, is it just me, or is the site on the frizz? I get error messages whenever I try to read a story, and have to reload the page at least ten times to get it to work._


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